FSX-MS To FSX users on the fence for P3D 2.5

[G7USL]

Here's a thought.

 

When and If P3D changes to 64bit, your going to have to pay for a whole new PMDG aircraft.

[aceridgey]

Here's a thought.

 

When and If P3D changes to 64bit, your going to have to pay for a whole new PMDG aircraft.

 

My understanding is that pmdg are not charging for the upgrade if it goes 64bit . (It's you're btw)

[mmann]

 

 

I am running the typical I5 4670k with 8gig RAM with a GTX 970.

 

The GTX 970 where I live is priced a little over $500.00 with taxes and environmental fee; so even if I qualified for the P3D License (which I don't), I couldn't justify to my money manager (a.k.a. the wife) the amount required to support this GPU hungry application.

[G7USL]

My understanding is that pmdg are not charging for the upgrade if it goes 64bit . (It's you're btw)

Alex, surely 64bit is a whole new aircraft?

[fogboundturtle]

Alex, surely 64bit is a whole new aircraft?

The price of the PMDG P3D license includes any future upgrade to the 64 bit conversion.

[KingGhidorah]

Flying a 64 bit PMDG airplane in a 64 bit P3D environment is likely going to be years off anyway, so for me it has very little bearing on whether to embrace P3D in the near term.

[Glynn]

That's what I thought I read in the PMDG forum when the P3D NGX was released, just looked again and now it only says "we can convert this one over for you"

I am sure it originally read "free upgrade to 64bit P3D when it arrives.

 

 

 

PMDG 737NGX for Prepar3D:

Ah... at LAST....

 

Thank you to all of our Prepar3D customers for waiting so long for this release.  We know you guys have been waiting (literally!) for years- and it is nice to finally deliver what we promised back in 2012.

 

This release is compatible with P3D v2.2-v2.5.

 

For those wondering, we intend to continue making it compatible as further versions of P3D roll out.  Our hope is that somewhere in v3.x we will see an x64 version and then we can convert this one over for you.

 

 

If you spent the same amount of time tweaking P3D the way you did with FSX, you might see some result.

 

Been using P3D since 2010 thanks, I think I have got the hang of it by now....

 

Lockheed Martin Overseas Corporation - Prepar3D
Invoice #2000170 Date: 12/20/2010 9:44:33 AM

[AviatorMoser]

But what's the performance cost to all this? The P3D forum is not exactly inspiring confidence for anyone to change.

 

Well the performance cost for HDR with SweetFX is zero. Or tiny. And it's free. I don't have to pay for a "completely different sim" either.

[IFR7700]

Thanks for that. I can assure you that I have run all of the above sims and why do you think my opinion is bias and that I don't know what I am doing?

 

Alex, your post is why I am so interested in this subject.  I noticed you switched from DX9 (default).  DX10 makes all the difference to me.  No dis to you intended at all.  There may be such a comparison already, I just haven't come across it yet.

[dbw1]

I moved to p3dV2.4 last Christmas and am really impressed by it. Actually blown away by the improvements. That said I will hold off going to 2.5 till things are going a little more smoothly with pay ware addons. I'm going to put in another ssd (the cost has come down greatly in the last 6-12 months) and when the time is right I'll build up 2.5.

[robert young]

If it wasn't for the extra cost in full price addons, I'm sure more people would be content to run both sims. I do think it is somewhat absurd to describe something as "professional" then add a disclaimer saying "this is for entertainment purposes" on addons. The word "Pro" or "Professional" invades all sorts of products as a really naff and euphemistic description - even on shampoos and cosmetics! Somehow the producer of these products think the consumer is going to be impressed, and sadly they often are.

 

It is not quite true to say developers only have to change the installer when producing crossover versions. We had quite a few months getting everything to run the Duke well in P3d. The config app had to be re-written and there were subtle but significant changes in flight modelling, the way a few gauges reacted and some things did not function as we expected. So we charged what we felt was a fair upgrade price. It could well be that the more complex the aircraft, the more work is needed to convert from FSX to P3d, so I'm not knocking a fair charge.

 

What I find silly is the use of the word "professional" when clearly it is no such thing.

[max2770]

I was toying with it until the P3D 777 came out.  I had set it up many times for customers, but never got fully on board. I spent 2 days setting it up properly and never looked back - what an improvement.  I haven't touched FSX since.

[Patco Lch]

Right now FSX is the only sim I have. After untold hours of reading these fourms the only other one I would consider if I were looking for another sim would be FS9. Seems to be the one with the happiest campers and the least trouble and grief.

[Christopher Low]

 

so even if I qualified for the P3D License (which I don't)

 

Oh, dear Lord.....not this again :rolleyes:

[EngineRoom]

I'm going to go against the grain and say I don't think P3D is currently worth the switch.

 

I've now run P3D2 on three different systems (four if you count one of those systems I swapped out a GTX480 for a GTX780Ti). About a year ago I did a side by side comparison of FSX DX10 and P3D2.2 with no addons installed. I found there was quite literally nothing to choose between them in terms of performance. I appreciate things have improved since 2.2 and 2.5 is easily the best iteration yet.

 

My experience is the fairy tales about increased performance and "wow" graphics are just that - fairy tales. On all three systems I've run it on P3D2 - in terms of framerate and my subjective interpretation of smoothness -  performs broadly similarly to a properly configured FSX DX10, especially once you start throwing addon aircraft and scenery into the mix. The latest iteration of P3D2 has marginally better VAS management than FSX.

 

Other than that what does P3D2 bring to the table? HDR and some new shadows, including clouds. You need to be careful though because the new shadows can cause significant performance degradation in certain situations. The graphical improvements, whilst they are indeed nice, did not blow my socks off nor do I consider them "must haves". Funnily enough some months after P3D2 was released I posted some FSX screenshots here and people couldn't tell if they were from P3D2 or FSX. This was in the midst of the P3D2 post release hype where everyone was fawning over the amazing new graphics. Modest graphical improvements aside, quite literally nothing else has changed from FSX and all core flight simulation elements remain exactly the same, with all the same old limitations and shortcomings.

 

Once you've purchased P3D2 you might find you need to pay again for some of your addons, and in several cases you will have to pay an even higher price. It's up to the individual if they deem it worth paying for what is essentially the same product all over again. In my case I did not deem it worthwhile to pay again for my PMDG 737/777, Flight One GTN units or A2A aircraft purely to be able to install them in a "new" sim which in my opinion isn't any tangible improvement over the "old" sim.

 

The irony is if you want to fly a complex airliner on a long haul flight between detailed airport sceneries with plenty of AI and real weather neither FSX nor P3D2 are reliable enough to be viable solutions. You'll have to go back to good old FS9. If that's progress then colour me unimpressed.

 

On a related note I also think P3D has raised the barrier for entry into the flight simulation hobby. The price, availability and farcical situation with regards to licensing, along with the aforementioned requirement to re-purchase some of the more popular addons and opportunity taken by many developers to raise their prices even further will only discourage new people from entering the hobby, and that I fervently believe is a very bad thing for the future of home based flight simulation as a hobby.

 

In all honesty the best platform out there at the moment is XP10. It scales far better with hardware than either FSX or P3D2. The problem is it's being held back by Laminar's glacial pace of implementing much requested features, and a chicken and egg situation when it comes to third party developers.

 

Having said all that, there's no reason not to try P3D2. In fact I'd encourage everybody to do so and make their own minds up. It will only cost you $10 for a month during which you can decide if it's for you.